By having the courage to go deeper into the realm of “humanness” creates an innovation force multiplier and can dramatically improve the success of your innovation culture. Innovative results are outcomes of creative thought and collaboration, which are wildly human experiences that consist of emotional and relational elements. It is an innovation leader’s job to optimize the emotional energy of their teams towards great novel solutions. Although many companies offer growth mindset or emotional intelligence training for their employees, the value of these trainings is lost when the key messages are left out of the strategy conversations within the leadership team. Developing ways to make emotional, relational, and social intelligence embedded into the fabric of the culture begins by weaving them into strategic planning conversations.

Virtually all companies now claim to have a culture of innovation, yet they often fail to recognize disconnects between the performance of teams and overall governing corporate culture that may be dampening or even distorting innovation. Seeing these invisible cultural disconnects is similar to seeing the invisible biological disconnects that are revealed in a functional MRI. When the driving action of innovation teams is going on beneath the surface, it remains invisible, unspeakable and therefore unmanaged.

I was recently invited to speak at a civil engineers’ conference about the hot topic of #Inclusive Leadership. On my way to the conference, I pondered my connection to the world of civil engineering. I realized how the results of civil engineering were all around me. I began marveling at the landmarks – signs of engineering ingenuity on my way to the conference: the viaduct, bridges, skyscrapers, ferries and even the conference center where I was going to be speaking at. I was in awe.

It occurred to me at that moment that while I’m not a civil engineer, I am a “Civility Engineer”, one who works with behavior “engineering”.

Well, not necessarily. If all you’ve done is hire for diversity and then sit back and wait for the magic to happen, you will probably be disappointed. Your team will fail to meet your expectations and Continue reading Why Do Diversity Efforts Fail?

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